Tag: Rob Manfred

Major League Baseball players will honor victims of last week’s shooting in Florida by wearing Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School hats at spring training games this week.

Several Grapefruit clubs had first planned to honor victims by wearing the school’s caps before their league openers.

Commissioner Rob Manfred said that within 48 hours, all 30 teams were confirmed to wear the school hats during pregame warm-ups for their exhibition openers. Players, managers, coaches and umpires will have the option of wearing the caps during those first games. The hats might later be signed and auctioned to raise money for the Broward Education Foundation, the official victims fund.

You still need a QB, though, and Zac Thomas gets first crack at the job. The sophomore led a garbage-time field goal drive against Georgia last year, but that’s about the extent of his experience. He appears to be pretty mobile, and co-coordinators Shawn Clark and Frank Ponce don’t appear to be changing much of the system.

If Thomas can’t cut it, there are other options. Sophomore Jacob Huesman and redshirt freshman Peyton Derrick have good size, and incoming three-star freshman Stephon Brown, at 6’5, 220, has great size. But the best-case scenario is probably that the third-year Thomas figures things out.

Nate Woody’s last game was maybe his most impressive. Part of the reason for App State’s surge all the way to No. 18 in S&P+ is that the Mountaineers utterly destroyed an awesome Toledo team, 34-0, in the Camellia Bowl. That one game led to a jump of 17 spots in the overall rankings.

Rasmus was hitting .281 with nine home runs and 23 RBIs in 37 games for the Rays when he left. He has hit 165 home runs and batted .242 in nine seasons with St. Louis, Toronto, Houston and Tampa Bay. He has hit more than 20 home runs in a season four times in his career.

The left-handed-hitting Rasmus is expected to compete with Alex Presley, another left-handed-hitting outfielder, for a spot on the major league roster.

Orioles general manager Dan Duquette said in a text that Rasmus is a proven veteran player in the AL East, who is a versatile outfielder with good power and speed to make a meaningful contribution.

Back in 2002, the Colorado Rockies became the first squad to utilize a humidor. Club officials noted the balls used at Coors Field were lighter and smaller than MLB specifications, suggesting the dry air, along with the reduced pressure, dries them out. Balls already travel more in the mile-high thin air, so the hope was not only for improved grip but also that a slightly heavier, larger ball would carry less in home games.